Hachiman Hikigaya, who returned from his studies after completing his training.

"I never expected this, I never expected this, Hachiman, you actually underestimated me." Ryuen laughed as he looked at the newcomers behind him.

Fujimaki, a senior in Class 3-A, is as tall and strong as Albert Yamada, who is Black. Sudo Ken is even more muscular than Ishizaki Daichi, but has less fighting experience. Horikita Suzune, like Ibuki Mio, has studied martial arts for several years.

"Could you ask Yamada, Ishizaki, and the other seniors from Class 3-A, Fujimaki, to go out for a bit, Ryuen?" Hachiman spread his arms and did a few chest-expanding exercises.

Calling people over was just to create an environment for a one-on-one fight with Longyuan.

Raising his hand to stop his follower from speaking, Ryuen Sho threw his coat on the ground and laughed, "Of course, Hachiman, I'll show you what hell is like."

“This is the only time you can talk big.” He took out the red hairband that Sakura had left behind and said was a gift for him from his pocket, combed his bangs back and tied them up with the hairband.

After everyone else had left, Long Yuan had already positioned himself two steps away from him, waiting for him to make the first move.

"I didn't prepare a video recorder."

"I'll confirm it myself after I beat you down."

"It's about to start." Hachiman also started to smile.

"bring it on!"

Lowering his center of gravity, Hachiman first threw his right fist at Ryuen's chest, and Ryuen responded in kind with his own right fist in response to Hachiman's preemptive strike.

Ryuen didn't dodge, while Hikigaya, lacking experience, wisely chose to charge in, and the two of them caught each other's fists with their chests.

The sudden burst of pain made Hachiman grimace, and Ryuen, who thought he was used to pain and was about to continue throwing punches, also froze for a moment.

Hachiman's punch was heavier than he had imagined.

The best way to defeat an experienced enemy is to bring him down to the same level. Despite the pain, Hachiman continued to engage in close combat with Ryuen.

Even when his strength was not flowing smoothly, Hikigaya's right hand continued to beat Ryuen's body, hitting his side, back, and arms, hitting whatever he could.

While only attacking and not defending, one is naturally also being attacked, and the pain of being beaten is rapidly collected from all parts of the body to the brain.

"It hurts! It hurts so much! Longyuan!"

The intense pain made Hachiman acutely aware of the fact that he was alive. After his rebirth, his memory became almost photographic, and his physical strength gradually far surpassed that of ordinary people.

This gave him a sense of unreality, and under this pressure, he did many things that were not in line with his personality. Only recently has he corrected his attitude a little.

"Welcome to Hell, Hachiman!"

Long Yuan's forceful collision sent both men tumbling to the ground. At this point, neither of them held back, and they both instinctively struck each other in the face.

It was still moving.

It was still moving after two moments.

...and stopped moving.

When Ryuen's retaliatory hand lay quietly on the ground, Hikigaya felt his face go numb, and fresh blood dripped onto the floor from time to time.

There are those from Longyuan, and there are those from his.

Wiping his face, Hachiman stood up from the unconscious Ryuen and roared angrily.

"Fight! It's fun!"

A surge of inexplicable emotions made Hachiman tremble, his heart pounding against his chest, his thoughts soaring into a cloudless, clear blue sky.

Unshackled from the old shackles, I now know who I truly am!

A passage from the classic novel *Water Margin* that he had read years ago came to mind.

“Today I know who I am!”

“Today I know who I am!”

Amidst his laughter, Hachiman stopped worrying about whether his existence was justified.

He just needs to do what he likes according to his own ideas.

Chapter Twenty-Five: Verbal Cooperation

After Hikigaya closed his eyes and rested for a while on the bench next to the locker, Ryuen, who was lying on the ground, slowly woke up and silently got up and sat down next to him.

"Are you used to getting beaten up?" Long Yuan touched the bruises on his face. "Your body doesn't look as strong as mine, yet you're so resilient. You don't seem to have any fighting experience."

Long Yuan landed more punches on his opponent, but he was the one who stood still in the end.

"Don't ask." Hachiman chuckled inwardly. "If you ask, it's open."

Even if Hachiman is overpowered, he's still Hachiman. In short, he's not wrong; the world is wrong.

"How did you threaten Yamauchi?"

Although being labeled an idiot is Yamauchi's trademark, his walnut-like brain also knows that Class D and Class C are competitors, and if the betrayal of him is exposed, he will have no place in Class D.

"That idiot, he just asked Yabu to send him a confession voice message and he ran off to a blind spot in the surveillance cameras like a puppy," Ryuen said with a mocking expression. "I just surrounded him and scared him a few times and he obediently handed over his pledge of allegiance. I was actually thinking of taking action against him."

"Using such underhanded tactics will never get you into Class A."

"The approach of 'as long as it's useful, it's fine,' and 'if the school can't see it, it doesn't exist' precisely illustrates this point."

If you don't see it, then it doesn't exist. The school's policy is indeed as free as Longyuan said, because it spends so much money not to cultivate naive and innocent people with high IQs and strong sportsmanship, but to cultivate elite talents who can thrive in a complex society.

However, Longyuan overlooked, or rather lacked the knowledge to understand, that this school was created to boost political achievements with the support of a certain government party, and that garbage is not worthy of the title of producing graduates.

He had learned this from a young lady he knew before.

If you try to cultivate elites but end up producing trash, that's not an achievement but a stain on your record.

As long as Class C's overall strength does not improve, even if Longyuan uses underhanded tactics to lead Class C to a significant lead in points, the school will still issue some unreasonable special exams in the third year that give Classes A and B a huge advantage.

Although it shouts the slogan of student self-governance, it acts faster than anyone else when it touches the school's interests.

"A simple estimate would show that the money invested in this school is enough to nurture thousands of students, but the current situation is that there are only 160 first-year students, and only 40 of them have graduated. Long Yuan, you don't naively think that the current students in Class C are qualified to graduate, do you?"

“Of course I’m not worthy.” Long Yuan coughed and spat out a thick phlegm stained with blood. “My goal is the same as yours: to collect as many personal points as possible. You’re saying all this because you want to cooperate with me, right?”

In the eyes of junior high school teachers, students in classes C and D are basically troublemakers. Those who have good grades either have personality problems or a dark past, while those who are good at sports have poor academic performance.

Violence and fear can only make people obedient on the surface, at least. Ryuen has neither the ability nor the inclination to force the poor students in Class C to study day and night, nor does it say that if someone has a bad personality, beating them will make them better.

"Yes, let's cooperate. You, who are in Class C, have the ability to earn personal points together."

Hachiman set up this whole thing just to wait for Ryuen to say those words, and the one-on-one duel was also a way to prove his strength.

As for whose personal points to earn, that's naturally whoever has the money to earn from.

"Then what makes you think you have the ability to cooperate with me? The leader of Class D is Hirata, not you."

“Ichinose will listen to me, and as long as my opinion doesn’t compromise Hirata’s bottom line, he will seriously consider it.”

"What a cold and heartless man, Hachiman," Ryuen thought, trying to laugh, but the pain from her wound made it impossible.

In his view, Ichinose might just be a tool being used by Hikigaya, and the future of Class B might be just so-so. The current situation of bringing together the three lower-ranked classes to besiege Class A might not be so bad.

"I'll agree, Hachiman." Ryuen looked around. "Where's the alliance agreement? Show it to me."

"As long as we are of one mind, we don't need that kind of thing."

"ridiculous."

After reaching a verbal agreement, the two cleaned up the traces of the fight together, put on their coats, and went outside the locker room to meet up with their teammates who were still confronting each other.

"Has he lost his mind? Why are he acting like he's best buddy with Long Yuan?"

After thanking Hikigaya, the senior Fujimaki who had borrowed the help from Horikita left, while Ichinose Horikita and Sudo sat down with Hikigaya on chairs outside a cafe that wasn't open yet.

"Who's winning?"

"Does it still hurt, Hachiman?"

As soon as he sat down, Hikigaya received a triple punch, which was undoubtedly ironic for Horikita. Sudo was more concerned about who won, while the person who expressed concern was his nominal girlfriend.

"I didn't get stupid, I won, but I'm still in pain," Hachiman replied quickly, then looked at Ichinose, who seemed hesitant to speak, "We'll talk about it when we get back to the dorm."

“It’s been confirmed from Ryuen that Yamauchi betrayed me. Horikita, talk to Hirata and see how to resolve this.”

"That bastard Haruki!" Sudo slammed his fist on the table. Although Hachiman had told him to be mentally prepared, he was still furious.

After his anger subsided, Sudo put on a somewhat ingratiating smile. "Hachiman, could you please not tell the rest of the class about this? I'll definitely beat him up and make him change his ways."

Even though he betrayed his class, Haruki Yamauchi remained one of his few friends.

Under Horikita's astonished gaze, Sudo slammed his forehead on the table. "Please, Hachiman, just let Haruki go this once."

“Shouldn’t you have cut ties with him, Sudo?” Horikita didn’t understand Sudo’s actions. “Besides, isn’t Hachiman your friend too?”

During the fight, Hikigaya helped Sudo, as did during the midterm exam. Horikita assumed that the two were friends, since in her eyes only friends would do such a thing without any benefit to themselves.

“It’s a little different.” Sudo looked up, his gaze darting away from Hikiya’s.

"I feel like I can understand Yamauchi, and I've gotten the feeling that I'm his friend from him. But Hachiman is different. When I'm with him, I don't feel like he's treating me as an equal..."

“Is inequality a good description? How should I put it?” Sudo scratched the back of his head in frustration, then put on an expression of sudden realization. “It feels like Hachiman is an adult rather than a peer.”

“Sir,” Horikita stared at his face for a while, “only his eyes look like his, like he’s dead.”

“I can sue you for defamation if you make a personal attack.”

"I was simply stating the facts; I did not have any grounds for being the defendant."

"Just keep being so self-righteous," Hikigaya said to Horikita, then looked at her. (The rest of the text appears to be unrelated and possibly machine-generated gibberish.)

"Starting next month, all the personal points that the school gives to Yamanouchi will be mine until I advance to the second year."

The special exam for forced withdrawal at the end of first grade hasn't come yet, so let Yamauchi squeeze every last drop of value out of him.

Chapter Twenty-Six: Swimsuit Ichinose

"Hikigaya-kun's room has a lot of new things." After entering the room, Ichinose curiously looked through the new furniture. Since her last visit, there were several more sofa cushions and even a small dining table.

After sending Sudo Horikita away, Hikigaya took Ichinose to the pharmacy to buy some liniment for his back. He needed someone to apply it to his back.

Although he could also find Sudo or Hirata, he preferred to be touched by Ichinose rather than by a man.

"Because we have guests all the time." After taking off his coat and short-sleeved shirt, Hachiman put his phone on the table and obediently lay down on the bed. "Sorry to trouble you to help me apply the medicine."

"I told you not to be so polite."

Unscrewing the cap of the fall medicine, a strong medicinal smell filled the room. Ichinose took off her brown coat, and even though her beige short-sleeved shirt was a bit loose, it couldn't hide her ample bosom.

After pouring some brown liquid onto her hand, Ichinose walked to the bedside. The boy lying on the bed had a large frame and a broad back. Although his muscles were not obvious, they were still defined.

The back, which was somewhat pale, had become red and swollen in many places.

"Take good care of your body, Hikigaya-kun."

As she spoke, Ichinose applied the medicine to the red and swollen area of ​​Erjiuqi Liujiu Yisan E, gently rubbing it with her slender, well-defined fingers to help the medicine be better absorbed by the body.

"Does it hurt?"

"It won't hurt, just apply it as you like."

Hikigaya, lying on the bed, buried his head in his arms, quietly feeling Ichinose's originally cold little hands gradually warm up, a feeling of pain mixed with comfort.

Huh? Was I a masochist before?

I'm sorry, Komachi, I'm so sorry your brother is a pervert.

But Ichinose's massage felt really good!

As Hikigaya was lost in thought, he felt a light pat on the back, followed by Ichinose's gentle voice.

"Now that the back is okay, turn over and apply the front."

"Huh?!" Hachiman opened his eyes. "I can handle the front myself!"

If he were to look directly at Ichinose, he would definitely blush; in fact, his face is probably already quite red right now.

“It’s my duty as your girlfriend,” Ichinose said, placing her hand on Hachiman’s side. “If you don’t turn around, I’ll tickle you.”

The first time Ichinose had ever touched a boy's body made her blush slightly. Although she was upset that Hachiman had hurt her, she also felt a sense of pleasure seeing Hachiman lying on the bed, seemingly at her mercy.

She really wanted to see the expression on Hikigaya's face.

"I reject."

Hearing Hachiman say that, Ichinose started tickling Hachiman's side, "Today Hachiman is a bad boy who fights, you can't disobey him."

Human endurance is limited. Unable to bear the tickling any longer, Hikigaya rolled over and pinned Ichinose's hands under his back. From his lying position looking up, he couldn't take his eyes off Ichinose's enormous breasts.